As Newtown Schools Reopen, One Receives Phone Threat

ENLARGE

A bus carrying children to school for the first time since Friday's Connecticut shootings passes a funeral for 6-year-old Jessica Rekos. Sandy Hook Elementary, where the shootings took place, remained closed.
John Moore/Getty Images

By

Alison Fox and Josh Dawsey

Updated Dec. 18, 2012 12:08 p.m. ET

SANDY HOOK, Conn.—Many children here returned to school Tuesday for the first time since a mass shooting left 27 people dead, but one school poised to reopen canceled classes after receiving a threat.

Many children in Newtown, Conn., returned to school Tuesday for the first time since a mass shooting left 27 people dead, but one school poised to reopen canceled classes after receiving a threat. Alison Fox joins The News Hub with the latest. Photo: Reuters.

While children from Sandy Hook Elementary School, where 20 students and six educators died in Friday's rampage, likely won't return until January, thousands of students from five other schools in the Newtown Public School District went back to class Tuesday morning. The schools opened with a two-hour delay and an increased security presence, with police officers at every building.

ENLARGE

Thousands of students at schools in the Newtown Public School District went back on Tuesday, but children from Sandy Hook Elementary School won't return to classes until January.
Reuters

One school, Head O'Meadow Elementary School, was slated to reopen but did not after a phone threat was made against the school. A district spokeswoman said the threat posed no real danger but students and staff were instructed to stay home "out of an abundance of caution," a spokeswoman said.

Students from Sandy Hook Elementary School will be moved to Chalk Hill School, a former middle school about seven miles away in Monroe. Officials said the classrooms will be set up just as they were at Sandy Hook.

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Outside Hawley Elementary School on Tuesday morning, a police officer waved with both hands as a bus entered the parking lot. The kids waved back from behind the windows as they passed.

Pete Muckell kissed his 8-year-old daughter Shannon and told her he loved her before dropping her off at Hawley. He said Shannon was not scared, and he felt it was important to get her back into the classroom.

"We can't keep them in a bubble," said Mr. Muckell, 52 years old, who also has an older daughter in middle school. "I just wanted to get them back to routine.

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A man accompanied a girl to school in Newtown. Eric Thayer/Reuters

Sue Selner, 44, brought her son to Reed Intermediate School, where a counseling center has also been established. He is in fifth grade and graduated from Sandy Hook Elementary last year. Her younger son, 4 years old, was slated to start kindergarten there next year.

"It was scary," she said about bringing her older child back to school. "I thought it was OK. He doesn't really understand what's going on. His main concern was that the shooter was dead."

Ms. Selner said she reassured him by saying, "You're safe, we love you, your teacher loves you." She thought it was important to get back to a normal routine.

"The longer you keep them out, the harder it is," said Ms. Selner. "They need routine. They can't see fear in us because it passes on to them."

After dropping him off, she stopped in for breakfast at Bagel Delight with her youngest child. She splurged on three cookies—one gingerbread, one Santa and one snowman—because the 4-year-old couldn't decide which he wanted most.

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